


Rocket Man

by only_freakin_donuts



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: And A Bunker Birth!, F/M, I LOVE KID FICS, Kid Fic, SUCH FLUFF, We're Having A Bunker Baby!, damn belle back at it again with the carrie underwood songfics, rufus and jiya had unprotected shower sex yikes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 06:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15333516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/pseuds/only_freakin_donuts
Summary: Well, to put it simply, Rufus and Jiya had unprotected shower sex (ONE TIME!) and now, we're having a bunker baby, and a bunker birth.She’d seen a lot of things, been a lot of places– she was the girl who was able to travel time and space with just her mind, after all– but this was, by far, the best thing she’d ever laid eyes on, and the best place she could be. And she wouldn’t waste the moment by closing her eyes now.





	Rocket Man

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh so yeah, the plan from here on is to just drown us all in fluffy kid fics, how's that sound??? But for real, I had a ball writing this fic and the thought of Rufus and Jiya being parents is super fun. 
> 
> (For reference– the season finale didn't happen here, I wrote this before the finale. So no dead Rufus, no three years in 1880s Chinatown, none of that. Just accidental bunker shower sex and a following pregnancy and birth. AND, if anyone read my Lucy and Wyatt with their kids, Forever Changed, they do coexist, so obviously one day there will be a fic with the team and all the babies.)

“Connor,” Jiya whispers, hoping she’s loud enough to pull him from his comfortable looking slumber. “Connor.”  
He startles awake with a slight gasp, meeting eye to eye with Jiya. “What’s wrong, are you okay?” he asks immediately.  
“I’m fine,” she answers, her face is a little less convincing, but Connor’s too tired to read too far into the expression hidden behind the mid night fog. “Can you come into Rufus and I’s room for a second? We want to show you something.”  
“Jiya, it’s an ungodly hour–”  
“Please?” she interrupts.  
And, of course, for her and Rufus, Connor did it. 

Rufus has that same, eager smile his girlfriend has; their youthful euphoria brings a smile to Connor’s face too. “Alright, what is going on?” he asks.  
“Um,” Rufus starts, laughing as he does. “This, is gonna sound crazy, and it is crazy, even to us, we know...”  
Jiya slips something into Connor’s hand, conveniently outstretched– a white, plastic stick with two blue lines displayed on it. Something that more than anything scared the shit out of the two young engineers, but also kind of excited them.  
“What is this?” Connor asks softly, studying it. “Jiya, y-you’re?”  
She smiles; that smile showing all the colours of the wind. “Yeah, I am,” she nods. “I-I just took the test about an hour ago, you’re the first person we wanted to tell, we’ll tell everyone else in the morning.”  
“Was this– was this planned?” Connor asks. “Even if it wasn’t, it’s incredible.”  
“It was definitely not planned,” Rufus laughs lightly. “It’s a very welcomed surprise, though.”  
“A huge, life-changing, scary, exciting surprise,” Jiya continues, laughing. “But, yes, very welcomed!”  
“You guys are going to be such loving parents,” Connor exclaims, shaking his head in awe. “Congratulations, guys.”  
“Thank you,” Jiya answers, leaning against Rufus’ shoulder. 

Even when Connor fell back asleep, with a smile on his face, the two expectant parents stayed up, Jiya still leaning on her love’s shoulder. Some of the shock had started to wear off, leaving room for darker emotions to settle in too. “Are you sure we aren’t dreaming?” Jiya asks, looking up to meet Rufus’ eyes.  
“I don’t think we’re dreaming,” he answers, a small smile on his face at his girlfriend’s cute question.  
“It’s so soon,” she continues. “It’s been one hell of a year, so much has happened... and now this. How does this affect– I can’t go in the Lifeboat, we can’t tell how time travel would affect an unborn baby, that’s super risky–”  
Rufus puts a stop to those thoughts quickly. “Don’t worry about that,” he reassures her. “It’s okay to stay with your feet on the ground, pilot. I-I’m not really in a rush to get back out there either, as you said, it’s risky. I have a kid to come home to now...”

Jiya smiles to herself, shyly, almost. “I never... I never thought I’d be a mom,” she admits. “Just never had an interest, didn’t think it was meant for me. It seemed nice, for other girls. I wanted to be an astronaut– what, I was just going to leave a baby and go into space?” She laughs lightly. “People plan, God laughs.”  
“People plan, and then their friends use all the condoms,” Rufus shrugs, ever skeptical of the belief of God, or His role in this.  
Jiya rolls her eyes, still unable to wipe the smile off her face though. “It doesn’t feel wrong now, though. It’s early, we’ve only been together for a year and a half, I’m only 24, and we certainly live far from normal lives... but it just feels so right.”  
“It’s like something you never knew you wanted,” Rufus nods.  
He captured her thoughts exactly. “Yeah,” she concludes, then she presses a kiss to his lips, her hand on the side of his face. 

She pulls away laughing after just a moment, though. “Rufus, we’re having a baby.”  
He laughs too, and goes back to kissing her, more passionately this time. They were having a baby.

\----------

Everyone can tell something’s up as soon as they all sit down for breakfast– Rufus is smiling like a smitten schoolgirl, and clearly in kahoots with Jiya about it.  
And then Connor strolls in.

“You guys would never believe,” he starts, rubbing one of his eyes, “I had the strangest dream last night. Unless I’m turning into Jiya here and seeing the future now. I dreamt that she woke me up to tell me her and Rufus were pregnant. How weird is that?”  
Everyone turns to look at the two in the question, and can’t help but notice Jiya’s wide eyes and rosy red cheeks, and Rufus’ similar expression.  
“That wasn’t a dream, Connor,” Rufus finally speaks up. “That happened.”  
“Oh, the test was positive?” Agent Christopher speaks up, her voice warm. “Congratulations you two.”  
“Wait,” Connor speaks up, looking at Agent Christopher. “You knew about this? I thought I was the first to know.”  
“Well, someone had to go CVS at midnight and get them a pregnancy test,” she answers, as if it was obvious.  
Rufus nods, confirming what she just said, recalling the phone call he’d made last night.

-

“Agent Christopher?”  
“Rufus? It is midnight on a school night, what is wrong?”  
“Nothing, nothing! Nothing’s wrong. Just… Jiya and I need you to get us something, and bring it here, now, please.”  
“Can’t it wait until the morning, Rufus?”  
“We’d really rather it didn’t.”  
Something in his tone makes Denise almost sure he isn’t going to ask for condoms or chocodiles, not this time anyways, but asking can’t hurt. “Please don’t tell me you want condoms.”  
“Uh, that would’ve really come in handy about 6 weeks ago, it’s a little too late now...”  
She knows what they need. “Okay,” she tells him. “I’m coming. I’ll be there soon.”

-

“Congratulations! Oh my gosh, this is incredible!” Lucy laughs, rounding the table to give her expecting friends hugs. “Wow, there is a baby in there,” she exclaims, looking at Jiya’s belly. “This is crazy!”  
“Yeah,” Jiya laughs.  
“Congratulations, of course,” Wyatt smiles, “but, uh, does this mean we’re delivering a baby down here?”  
Jiya turns to Rufus for an answer (he usually had all of them); she’d never considered that, she hadn’t thought of the whole “birth” thing in detail yet.  
“Hopefully we’re not still down here by the time that baby comes,” Agent Christopher steps in.  
“But if we are? If we haven’t exterminated Rittenhouse and saved the world by then? What if we aren’t done the mission?” Wyatt asks again.  
“We probably won’t be, these sort of things take time,” Agent Christopher acknowledges.  
“Oh my God I’m gonna have a bunker birth!” Jiya realizes, only panicking slightly. 

“That’s okay!” Lucy’s quick to reassure her. “We’ve handled worse.”  
“Have we, though?” Rufus asks skeptically. “I mean this is literally bringing a human into the world–”  
“We escaped the Alamo, in case you forgot,” Wyatt mentions. “I think we can manage.”  
“We can, and will, bring a doctor down to help us,” Connor points out. “We’ve done it before.”  
“Yeah, the guy you called to check my seizures out?” Jiya pipes up. “He had very large, cold hands, I’d rather he didn’t... touch... my vagina...”  
“It won’t resemble a vagina anymore at that point, if it brings you any comfort, Jiya,” Flynn mumbles, speaking up for the first time today. Everyone had rather forgotten he was here.  
“Can we not discuss my girlfriend’s–” Rufus starts, letting the group fill in his blank.  
“You can say the word vagina, Rufus, it’s a body part,” Lucy mentions. “You came out of one too.”  
“Alright,” Agent Christopher reels them all back in. “Let’s not worry about it until we get there. Jiya, Rufus, if you two need anything, you know you can ask me. This is a very exciting time, and we’re all here to experience it with you. Our team’s going to have it’s newest member in just a few months, that is very exciting!”  
Everyone nods in agreement, even Flynn, grumpy as he was.

“I just have one question, man,” Wyatt quips, directing his question at Rufus. “Me and Lucy can barely sneak a kiss without getting interrupted– and you guys managed to make a baby?”  
The majority of the group rolls their eyes, not nearly expecting any response from Rufus.  
“It was in the shower,” Rufus answers, speaking quickly, almost regretfully.  
Lucy has to speak up now, as she and Wyatt both laugh in disbelief. “What?! Like, the shower we all share? You conceived your baby in our shower?!”  
Rufus laughs, shrugging smugly.  
“I live in a home with a bunch of horny children,” Connor shakes his head, looking to Denise and Flynn for sanctity, as the young ones laugh.

\-----------

“Hey, hey Jiya,” Lucy grins, coming into the kitchen. “Have you ever heard of the old wives tales?”  
“I can’t say that I have, no,” Jiya responds, smiling slightly. “What’s that?”  
“Well, legend has it, that these questions can predict the gender of the baby,” she grins. “You generally do them at a baby shower.”  
“Those things are always wrong,” Flynn calls out from the couch. “Wrong with my daughter, wrong with my nephews. And we all know they’re having a boy anyways.”  
“We do not know that,” Lucy reminds him. “She’s carrying really high to be having a boy.”  
Jiya looks down at her ever-growing belly, having never questioned it’s alignment before.  
“Can’t hurt to try, right?” Lucy probes, her eyes glimmering. 

Ten minutes later, they’ve got the whole team, with the exception of Agent Christopher and Connor, sitting in a circle on the living room floor. Everyone’s placed their bets, winning team gets a bottle of wine...

(Flynn is ever so certain they’re having a boy, and for once Rufus has to agree with him. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. He wouldn’t know how to raise a girl, what would he do with a girl? But so help him God if they had a boy and he wanted his dad to teach him to play soccer, or really any sport. Wyatt, probably just to ruffle feathers, voted girl. And so did Lucy, but she genuinely believed that. She just wanted a cute little thing they could dress in tutus and teach all of history’s greatest female icons to.)

“You can vote too, Jiya,” Lucy points out. “You can be the tie-breaking vote. Can’t drink the wine if you win, though.”  
“I don’t care what gender they are, I just want them to be healthy,” Jiya sighs, sounding like a real mom. “As long as it doesn’t have a tail, or a trunk, or twenty toes, I’m happy.”  
“But you’re okay with wings?” Flynn interrupts.  
“You can’t– that’s not a team,” Wyatt tries, ignoring Flynn, as everyone is. “We all want it to be healthy over everything and we still picked a side.”  
“You know it’s a boy,” Flynn wagers, wiggling his brows. “You have to at least have some intuition. Or have you had a vision about it and know, and that’s why you won’t vote?”  
Everyone takes that into consideration, four pairs of eyes drifting over to Jiya. “I did not have a vision about it, but I did have a dream...” she tells them. “...That it was a girl.”

“According to the wives tales, that means you’re having a boy!” Lucy exclaims.  
“Says who?” Flynn asks, obviously still skeptical.  
“The old wives!” Lucy answers. “That is one point for team boy. Jiya, what are your cravings like?”  
“If the fact that she asks Christopher to bring donuts almost every morning is any indication, I’d guess sweet,” Wyatt grins. “I don’t think any of us mind,” he adds, chuckling.  
“Sweet cravings is a girl thing,” Lucy says, reaching a hand out for a high five from her fellow “team girl” member. “How’s your morning sickness? And your mood?”  
Jiya motions with her hands, indicating a “so-so” or a “meh”, but Rufus interrupts. “It’s bad, it’s relentless, 8/10 now, 9/10 in the earlier months. And no offense, Jiya, but you’re moody as hell.”  
“Kinda have to agree with that one,” Wyatt adds under his breath, bracing himself for the swat either the baby mama or his girlfriend has coming for his bicep. “But, hey, I think you have some pregnancy glow?” he tries.  
Jiya huffs. “That’s sweat, Wyatt, it’s from throwing up all morning, may also explain the moodiness. You would be sweaty and moody too.”  
Lucy reads off the webpage with careful attention. “Although morning sickness does not discriminate, excessive morning sickness could be a sign you’re having a... girl! And moodiness indicates a girl too. That is 3-1 for team girl.” 

“What else is on that list?” Rufus asks, reading over Lucy’s shoulder with interest.  
“Awesome pregnancy hair, Jiya?” Lucy asks next. “Or any real pregnancy glow?”  
Jiya shakes her head, a hand in her hair. “I’m breaking out and it looks like I haven’t washed my hair in days even when I actually have,” she replies. “It’s a tragedy.”  
“Nah, they say girls steal their mom’s good looks,” Lucy smiles. “That’s another one for girl, shall we keep going, or is 5 enough to prove a point?”  
“Sure, all of them indicated girl, but Jiya’s dream indicated boy, and a mother’s intuition is always right,” Flynn points out.  
“My dream itself said girl... the wives’ tales said that means boy,” Jiya points out. “Or it could just mean I’m having a girl.” She looks to Rufus for his opinion.

And he just laughs. “Jiya, what are we gonna do with a girl?” 

-

“What are we gonna do with a girl?” Rufus muses again that night, while his love is laying with her head in his lap, their hands on her belly, feeling their little girl, or guy, wriggle and kick. To Rufus, this is the best feeling in the world.  
“We’ll be fine,” Jiya reassures him. “She has a good dad,” she smiles, looking up to meet his eyes.  
“And a great mom,” he grins. He notices a little sense of worry flicker across her face. “What?” he asks. “You are going to be amazing mom.”  
“How can you be sure of that?” Jiya asks, her eyes locked with his. “How can I know what’s best for our kid? I barely know what’s best for me. My mom always thought she was doing what was best for me when I was growing up and as an adult I realize that I have a lot of resentment in the way that she raised me. I don’t want our daughter to resent me one day.”  
“She will not resent you,” Rufus soothes her, rubbing soft circles over her belly. “You didn’t like how much pressure your mom put on you, even though you know she only did it because she wanted you to be successful. We know our kid is gonna be successful, and brilliant, and capable of anything she puts her mind to– she’s our kid, she’s your kid.”  
“But I don’t want her to feel bad if she isn’t successful, or brilliant; if she wants to be a social butterfly instead of a bookworm, or if she wants to go into literature or performing arts, or... I don’t know, sociology, o-or sports... I don’t want her to ever feel pressured into anything or feel like she’s disappointing us in anything she chooses in life because she’s not, she’s not disappointing us, she’s not disappointing me! Unless she’s like... a meth addict, o-or something– but even then!”  
“Jiya,” Rufus reels her in. “So our daughter wants to be something we don’t quite understand, something we’ve never been, of course we’ll support her anyways, why wouldn’t we? As long as she’s happy and healthy, that’s all that matters.” 

That’s enough to melt Jiya’s soppy, hormonal, pregnant heart. “You’re gonna be a great dad,” she whispers, reaching a hand up to his face. “Our daughter is gonna be so lucky, just like I am.”  
“Hey, can you teach me how to braid?” Rufus asks, his mind going a million miles a minute. It would probably never stop. They were having a baby.

\-----------

“Ohh, guys!” Jiya yells, waddling into the living room. “Guys, guys, guys... I think I just had a contraction.”  
“What?!” Rufus asks, jumping up from the couch. “It’s early.”  
“It’s only five days early, that’s nothing,” Lucy jumps in. “How far apart are they?”  
“I-I don’t know, I only had one,” Jiya starts, obviously shocked, sitting down on the couch, where Rufus had been. “It wasn’t even that bad, it’s fine. Just... letting you guys know.”  
“Okay,” Rufus nods, sitting back down and trying to calm down. “This baby isn’t coming yet, it’s fine. It’s all good, no worries. We should probably call the doctor, though? Just to let them know that is a thing that’s happening, most likely today?”  
Lucy nods, “I’ll go tell Connor. And I’m gonna call Agent Christopher, she had a kid– she’ll know what to do, right?”  
“Right,” Rufus nods.  
“No need to panic,” Lucy reinforces, looking between the two, soon-to-be parents.  
“No need to panic,” they say in unison, glancing at each other. 

-

“What do you mean there’s no doctor coming?” Jiya asks, her tone verging on hostility. She’s in active labour now, dilated and having frequent contractions. It had been two hours since she’d started contracting, her labour was progressing much quicker than expected. This baby was coming, it was coming now. (And she wanted drugs, now.) 

“I mean... there’s no doctor coming,” Connor repeats, trying not to get his head bitten off by the ferocious mama bear. “We have to deliver this baby.”  
“We can’t deliver this baby!” Rufus points out. “We’re not doctors, or nurses! We’re not even midwives!”  
“I agree it’s less than optimal...” Connor starts.  
“It’s flat out dangerous, Jiya or the baby could die,” Rufus yells. “We shouldn’t even be down here, we should be getting her to a hospital!”  
“Rufus, I’m fine,” Jiya tells him gently, in her current four minutes between contractions, a hand on his arm, tense muscles and angry heat. “Women have had successful home-births for centuries.” She looks to Lucy, their resident historian, for reassurance on that.  
Lucy smiles her peppy smile; it was true, women had been having home births for centuries, but they had also been bleeding out due to preeclampsia, placental abruptions, and having stillbirths for centuries too. Of course she’d never mention that, she’d just smile her peppy smile. “Sure,” she agrees. “We can do this,” she nods, looking at her team. Today, they weren’t just time travellers, they were labour and delivery nurses. At least she could never say her work wasn’t unique and challenging.  
“We’re going to the hospital as soon as the baby is born,” Rufus wagers. 

“My goodness, guys,” Denise announces, finally arriving. “We’re having a baby!” she tries, trying to put Jiya at ease more than anyone else.  
Jiya nods, smiling. “I need to push,” she says, looking to Denise, as if she’ll know what to do. “Can I push?”  
Lucy’s the one who’s gone and googled “how to emergency deliver a baby”, and found what to do and what not to do in extensive detail (leave it to the historian). “We need to get you lying down, then you can push,” she stammers. “Can one of you guys– it suggests covering the bed with a shower curtain and then a sheet–”  
“I’ll do it,” Flynn nods, excusing himself gracefully. In all honesty, he’d rather help from far away. Childbirth brought the memories of his wife and his daughter back to him, and he’d rather not relive those today. He was happy for Jiya, and for Rufus, he knew just how life-changing being a father was, but he would be happy for them from the next room.  
“Thank you,” Jiya tells him, as he’s walking away. Her sentiment is cut off as another contraction looms on the horizon.  
“Okay,” Lucy soothes her, rubbing her back; really taking this whole “helper” role on nicely. She looks to Wyatt, handing him her phone. “There’s a list of stuff we should have here, can you see how much we do have?” 

“One step ahead,” Denise steps in, pointing out the Target bag she’d came in with. “I brought a few things, probably not everything on the list, but some things I thought we’d need.”  
Wyatt trifles through the tote, “Maternity pads, the thing you use to suck gunk out of the baby’s nose, gloves, diapers, Tylenol, a baby blanket and pajama– Thanks, Agent Christopher.”  
“We have a hot water bottle here somewhere,” Lucy adds, “And hand sanitizer.”  
“We got this,” Wyatt and her say at the same time.  
“Bed’s ready,” Flynn calls, a moment later.  
“Alrighty Jiya, can we make it to the bedroom?” Lucy asks.  
Jiya nods, as Rufus takes her hands and helps her up.  
“Connor and I will be out here if you need anything,” Denise nods, nudging Connor not to follow them all into the bedroom. Jiya didn’t need a crowd, and it’s not like they were far away at all. This was the waiting room, this was where family stayed while the mom laboured.

“I’m Dr. Logan, I’ll be delivering your baby today,” Wyatt jokes, snapping his gloves on and entering the bedroom.  
“And I’m Dr. Preston and I will be helping! Or, just, doing it myself,” Lucy chides, putting her gloves on too. “Can we take a look, Jiya? Sit with your back against the wall, knees up,” she instructs, sitting on the floor, so she can see.  
Jiya nods, doing as Lucy says. “You are definitely dilated,” Lucy notes.  
“I need to push,” Jiya reinforces.  
“You can push,” Lucy nods. She looks to Rufus, holding his girlfriend’s hands, giving him a brief, encouraging smile. He returns it easily; as scary as this is, it’s also really exciting. 

From the doorway, Connor peeks in, spying on his little team. They’d currently come a long way since first meeting, since their first trip to the Hindenburg, even before that. When he met Rufus, and he was just a kid, when Rufus met Jiya, her first day working at Mason– and now they were having a baby together. He was proud of this family they had created.  
“Jiya, we almost see the head!” Wyatt tells her, a smile on his face. “We’re so close, you can do it. Give us a push.”  
Connor ducks back out, seeing her grab Rufus’ hands and hearing her yell. He knows her pain will be worth it so soon, but he still doesn’t like it.  
“Okay,” Wyatt nods, his voice soothing, “One more, we’re getting there. One more, Jiya.”

One more turns into four more, but then Lucy squeals. “There’s the head, there’s the head, it’s out! Rufus, look!”  
He leans forward for one second to look, and his laughter fills the room. “Oh my God, that’s our baby’s head!”  
And outside, Connor’s smiling again. 

“Wyatt, you don’t see the cord around their neck, right?” Lucy asks, just to be certain.  
Wyatt shakes his head. “It all looks good,” he confirms. “C’mon, Jiya, one more push and you get to hold your baby.”  
One more loud scream and hard push, one more time of almost breaking Rufus’ hands. And again, one turns into two, and then it happens. In a gush of (really gross) fluid, Wyatt’s catching a baby.

A clear, loud cry fills the bunker, and everyone sighs in relief. “Congratulations, guys, you have a baby boy,” Wyatt smiles, immediately drying him with a blanket and then placing him on Jiya’s chest.  
She isn’t crying in pain anymore, now the tears are happy ones– shock, gratitude, amazement, rubbing her baby’s back; her first motherly instinct, which had come so naturally to her. She looks at Rufus, who’s staring at his son with the same expression. He looks up from him only to look at his girlfriend, who he’s so, so proud of. “You did it, you did it,” he tells her, kissing her forehead. “And look what we have.”  
Lucy pulls her gloves off and wipes a tear from her own eye, watching the new parents. From the doorway, Connor now finally inches his way in, wanting to get a look at the newest member of the team. She motions for him to come in, as close as he feels comfortable. Denise peeks in from the doorway too.  
“Congratulations,” she smiles. “Does the little one have a name?” 

The new parents slowly lock eyes, and they both nod. “Yeah,” Rufus speaks up. “Everyone, meet Isaac Anthony Carlin.”  
A chorus of endearment spreads throughout the room, only interrupted by Connor. “After Anthony,” he smiles. “I love it.”  
“After Jiya’s dad, the grandpa he’ll never meet, and after the uncle he couldn’t meet,” Rufus nods. “We thought of naming him after you,” he admits to Connor, “but, he’ll know you. You’ll be there for him, just like you always for me, and for Jiya. And he’ll know his uncle Wyatt, and his Aunt Lucy, and Aunt Denise.”  
“Of course,” Lucy speaks up, on behalf of the group. “Isaac Anthony Carlin,” she says softly, taking a look at the beautiful, very new baby. “We all love you so much.”

“Give the new parents some space, would you?” Flynn suggests, peeking in from outside the room. “Give them a few minutes alone with their boy.”  
Lucy nods, rising to her feet. “Of course. We have to come back in about 10-15 minutes to deliver the placenta, though– unless you want to handle that, Rufus?”  
“No, no,” he answers immediately, “Come back for that, please.”  
Lucy smiles, having expected no less. “You’ll know when the placenta is ready to come out,” she tells them, more so Jiya. “Just give us a yell, we’ll be outside.”  
“Thank you, guys,” Rufus nods, on behalf of them both. “This would not have worked without you.”  
Wyatt pats his back on the way out, a big grin on his face. “Congrats, man.”

Jiya cries once they’re gone, more than she already was. “Rufus, he’s beautiful,” she says softly. She can’t take her eyes off him; this little thing resting on her chest was hers and Rufus’, he was theirs forever. His dark eyes and soft skin, and the cute little tuft of hair on his head, his little button nose and all his little fingers and toes... she’s in love. For the second, absolute time in her life– the first being Rufus– she’s in love.  
“He is beautiful,” Rufus agrees. “You did so good, you got him here.”  
“Well I couldn’t have done it without you,” she smiles, looking up at him. 

Isaac opens his eyes now, locking them with his mom’s– his first ever protector, his first ever friend, his home. “Hey buddy,” she whispers, her hand still stroking his blanket-covered back, making sure he stays warm and content. “Welcome home, rocket man,” she whispers, smiling at her and Rufus’ old nickname for him, that they’d stopped using when they briefly thought he was a she (in that time, they’d used rocket girl, of course.)  
“Mommy and Daddy love you,” Rufus adds, leaning into his two favourite people. 

Everything he never knew he wanted, just like he’d said to Jiya the night they first found out. This was it. What he never knew he always wanted.

\---------

That being said, it wasn’t always easy. But it was always worth it.

“I don’t know what he wants!” Rufus yells, looking to his girlfriend for some answers. After all, she was the one who could provide their son food with her body, which was pretty incredible when you thought about it.  
“Well, me neither!” Jiya answers. “I fed him, you changed him, he’s slept...”  
“He just hates us, that’s the answer,” Rufus settles. “He’s been crying for hours, why else would he be crying for hours, except he hates us?”  
“You’re so dramatic,” Jiya huffs, pacing slightly.  
Rufus follows her, hoping the movement will quiet their boy down. They both adored him, but they adored him even more when he wasn’t trying to peel paint off the walls with his voice. 

“Hey, guys,” Lucy starts, not to startle the new parents as she enters their room. “Is he being colicky again?”  
Rufus nods. “Clearly.”  
“I can take him for a bit, I’m not sleeping anyways,” she offers, reaching her arms out for the baby.  
Rufus nods, trying to hand his son over to his aunt. Isaac wants none of that, though, grabbing onto Rufus’ shirt with all his might, screaming louder. “Ok, nope,” Lucy nods, over the baby’s wails. “That’s alright, I don’t take it personally, little man. I can just hang out in here with you all, if you’d like.”  
Jiya shakes her head, groaning. “I think we all just need a quiet minute, Lucy.”  
“Hey,” Lucy suggests, a hand on her stressed, overtired friend’s shoulder. “Take a minute, go into my room. Wyatt’s sleeping in there, it’s quiet. It’s okay to take a minute.”  
She nods, on the verge of tears. “Okay,” she whispers. “Okay, I’ll be back, in a minute. I just need a minute.” 

She pushes past Connor, also awoken by the colicky kid, on her way out, and finds herself on Lucy’s bed a few moments later. It’s pushed together with Wyatt’s, to make one, big couple bed, but she doesn’t mind. She hugs a pillow to her chest and buries her face in it. She doesn’t want Wyatt to wake up to her crying anymore than she wants him to wake up to Isaac’s. 

Wyatt reaches a hand over, feeling the bed quake slightly with sobs. Lucy has spent too many nights up crying, it wakes him up now. He knows, though, as soon as his hand touches an unfamiliar thigh, that that’s not his girlfriend. He pops an eye open. “...Jiya?”  
“Sorry,” she whimpers, “Lucy told me I could come in here for some quiet, I didn’t mean to wake you up–”  
“No, it’s okay,” Wyatt grumbles, his voice sleepy and soft. “Isaac’s giving you a hard time?”  
Jiya nods. “I love him, so much, but–”  
“Jiya, just cause you need a minute doesn’t mean you don’t love him,” Wyatt reminds her with a smile. “You can be supermom and human at the same time, y’know? That’s why they say it takes a village to raise a baby, and you have one. You have the team. And it’s okay to cry in my bed every now and then.”  
“Thank you,” she whimpers, between sobs. “I feel like an idiot, but it feels good to let it out.”  
“Let it out, don’t worry about it,” Wyatt reassures her. “Stay in here as long as you need,” he adds, drifting back into dreamland. After a moment, though, he’s back. “Hey, Jiya?” he mumbles. “I don’t hear the baby anymore.”  
She listens closely for a minute, and she has to agree. “I don’t either...”

“What did you–” Jiya starts, barreling back into the room. She expected to see Rufus there, holding the baby. Instead, she found Connor holding her sleeping son on his chest, and Rufus asleep on his own bed, Lucy nearby with an accomplished grin.  
“He quite likes me,” Connor mentions, a smile on his face too. “I guess I quite like him too.”  
Wyatt, seemingly materializing behind Jiya, smiles too. He plops down on the bed with his girlfriend, careful not to wake the sleeping father beast. Jiya sits with Connor, careful not to wake the sleeping baby beast (like father, like son).

“Thank you guys, for being Isaac’s family,” Jiya says quietly. “And mine. I’m an only child, and my dad’s gone, and my mom’s so far away... I never thought I’d have kids, but if I did, I never thought they would have a family. But Isaac has you guys, and you’re the best family we could ever ask for. Rufus said this thing to me, when we found out we were pregnant, ‘what you never knew you wanted’. You guys are what I never knew I wanted; a family.”  
Everyone smiles in adoration and silence for a few, good moments. And then Connor breaks the silence. “I think we can all agree with that,” he says, Jiya thinks he might be tearing up a little. “I think of you all as my children in a weird way, and Isaac... I guess it’s nice to get to see one of my kids grow up right from the beginning.”  
Jiya smiles, leaning into his shoulder, giving him a sideways hug. Across the room, Lucy and Wyatt lean against each other.  
“I love you guys,” Rufus mumbles, barely awoken from his well-deserved slumber, “but, can you all get out of our room, go to bed?”  
The group giggles. “See you in the morning,” Lucy tells him, rubbing his shoulder. She stops to give Isaac a kiss, and her and Wyatt are back on their way to their own bed. Connor passes the tuckered little boy off his mom and he’s on his way back to his room as well. “Goodnight,” he whispers. “Get some sleep.”  
She nods. “You too.”

They said sleep when the baby sleeps, and while those was probably wise, wise words… Jiya just couldn’t put him down and go to sleep. She’d much rather stay here, take in the way he felt curled up on her chest, his feathery little breaths, his heartbeat. He wouldn’t be this small forever, and she didn’t want to waste a minute of it. She could sleep when he was a teenager, leading his own life, when he didn’t want to fall asleep with his old, stinky mom. 

She’d seen a lot of things, been a lot of places– she was the girl who was able to travel time and space with just her mind, after all– but this was, by far, the best thing she’d ever laid eyes on, and the best place she could be. And she wouldn’t waste the moment by closing her eyes now.

Isaac’s eyes flutter open, but he doesn’t make a sound– Jiya wants to keep it that way, if she can, the whole bunker is really tired of his persistent colic. “Hey, bud,” she whispers, softly rubbing his back. “Welcome back to planet Earth, rocket man. How was your trip?”  
He gurgles, as if he’s trying to answer. “Did you come back for some food?” she asks. “I bet you did, all that travel can make a little guy hungry.”  
Food, she can provide. She doesn’t talk to him while he nurses, just strokes his fuzzy hair and hums. 

Rufus drifts back into consciousness, hearing his girlfriend hum the famous Star Trek theme song under her breath. Her son would grow up thinking that was a lullaby. Man, he loved that woman.  
Jiya smiles, seeing Rufus awake. The only thing that made this view better was both her favourite boys being awake. “I love you,” she says, without even really meaning to. The words just flew out of her mouth straight from her subconscious. “You’re everything I never knew I wanted.”  
Rufus smiles too. 

“You know what I do know I want, though?” she asks, the slightest hint of a smirk making its way into her tone.  
“What?” Rufus asks. He knows something’s coming...  
“Another baby, one day,” Jiya smiles. “A co-pilot for our rocket man.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want more fics with Isaac and Rufus and Jiya, please let me know! And a co-pilot for their rocket man huh.....? :)


End file.
